Throughout the period of the Universal Exposition, from 10 March to 31 October 2015, the exhibition “Leonardo's mind. Drawings by Leonardo from the Codex Atlanticus ", set up in the two spaces of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Sacristy of Bramante in the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, will make it possible to make known the personality of Leonardo and the richness of the themes he touches, the variety of his fields of interest and study, the particularity of his work and his genius in the context of the Italian Renaissance. Through the studies present in the Codex Atlanticus itself or, for some loose sheets, such as the artistic ones, conserved in the Ambrosiana.
The initiative closes the cycle of exhibitions begun in 2009, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the Ambrosiana's opening to the public, with the aim of offering visitors the opportunity to be able to admire the Codex Atlanticus in almost its entirety.
The mind of Leonardo, curated by Pietro C. Marani, offers a nucleus of 88 sheets – exhibited in two stages, lasting three months each – which illustrate some of the main artistic, technological and scientific themes in which Leonardo was interested throughout his life career, and which are divided into sections that account for Studies in Hydraulics, Literary Exercises, Architecture and Scenography, Mechanics and Machines, Optics and Perspective, Mechanical Flight, Geometry and Mathematics, Studies on the Earth and the Cosmos and Painting and Sculpture. Almost following the order of his skills listed by Leonardo himself in the famous letter with which he offers his work to Ludovico il Moro.
"Throwing through the pages of the Codex Atlanticus - says Pietro C. Marani - in this secret heart of Milan, and examining the drawings and papers contained therein, one relives the emotion of direct contact with Leonardo's mind, while catapulted into the atmosphere and climate of the glorious years of Milanese collecting. When Galeazzo Arconati, in 1637, was able to donate the precious manuscripts of Leonardo which he had owned until then, and kept in the Castellazzo di Bollate, to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana precisely”.
The analysis of the architectural theme will be particularly interesting; in the exhibition it is possible to admire a view of a church with a cruciform plan which recalls the apse of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, drawings for octagonal buildings, the study for the Tiburio of the Cathedral of Milan which bears witness to the actual presence of Leonardo in that building site or still the drawings for an underground gallery, for a fortress with a semi-stellar plan, for a mobile bridge. These last three studies of military art give an idea of the practical applications Leonardo had to try in the service of the powerful of his time, such as Ludovico il Moro, who were worried about their safety.
The 'Devices and Inventions' section analyzes one of the most spectacular fields of investigation explored by Leonardo: that of human flight, represented here by four studies in which the flying machine is associated with the study of flapping wings.
Brief history of the Codex Atlanticus
The Codex Atlanticus (the name derives from its large atlas-like format) is the largest and most astonishing collection of Leonardo's sheets known.
This huge volume (401 sheets of 650×440 mm) was set up in the late sixteenth century by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni (c. 1533-1608) who collected, almost in the manner of a zibaldone, a miscellaneous collection of Leonardo's writings and drawings consisting of about 1750 units .
The material collected in the Codex Atlanticus embraces Leonardo's entire intellectual life over a period of over forty years, i.e. from 1478 to 1519. It contains the richest documentation of his contributions to mechanical and mathematical science, astronomy, to botany, physical geography, chemistry and architecture. Drawings of war devices, machines for descending to the bottom of the sea or for flying, mechanical devices, specific tools of various kinds mixed with architectural and urban planning projects. But there is also the recording of his thoughts through apologues, fables and philosophical meditations. The individual sheets are full of annotations on the theoretical and practical aspects of painting and sculpture, optics, the theory of light and shadow, perspective up to the description of the composition of the materials used by the artist.
Five years after Pompeo Leoni's death, his son Giovan Battista offered Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, the purchase of the Codex Atlanticus. Upon his refusal, in 1622 Galeazzo Arconati, of a noble Milanese family, obtained a part of the Vincian treasure for 300 scudi from Pompeo Leoni's son-in-law Polidoro Calchi, husband of his daughter Vittoria. In 1637, Arconati made a generous gift to the Ambrosian Library of the Codex Atlanticus together with 11 other Leonardo manuscripts and Luca Pacioli's De divina proportione.
The Vincian codes remained carefully kept in the Ambrosian Library until the last decade of the century. XVIII. On May 15th 1796 (26th year VI) the French army led by Napoleon entered Milan and four days later an ordinance was published which, under the pretext of conserving the artistic heritage, determined the procedures to be followed in stripping the cities of those artistic or scientific objects which could enrich the museums or libraries of Paris. The Codex Atlanticus remained in the French capital until 1815 when, following the French capitulation, it returned to its original Milanese location and never moved again.
The decision to unravel the 2008 sheets that, bound together and mounted on large sheets of paper, made up the twelve volumes that made up the Codex Atlanticus dates back to 1118. After a series of analyzes on the state of conservation of the sheets, and meetings and scientific discussions, maintaining the modern passe-partout on which Leonardo's original sheets were fixed, it was possible to view them, in rotation, thanks to the assembly of each single sheet in a new rigid passe-partout, of a large part of the Codex Atlanticus.
